Frequently Asked Questions

Received Refund – Decrease Purchase Price of Asset

Question: I currently have an asset that has already taken a month or so of depreciation and we received a refund and need to decrease the purchase price of the asset. What should I do?

Answer: Go to the Asset Information window and adjust the purchase price by that amount. You will need to also adjust the book value by the same amount. Whenever you increase or decrease the purchase price by an amount, you must also do the same to the book value. This will automatically lower your monthly depreciation amount using the purchase price – salvage value / estimated life.

Depreciating Asset Sold

Question: I currently have and asset on the books that is depreciating and I sold the item and need to delete it from the books. What do I need to do?

Answer: Delete the asset on the Asset Information window so it will no longer make any general ledger moves or appear on the 301 Report. You will also need to make a manual move between the general ledger accounts to reflect any final entries.

Asset Sold – Depreciated to Salvage Value

Question: I have an asset on the books that is already totally depreciated out down to the salvage value. I sold the asset and need to remove it from the books. What should I do?

Answer: Make the final general ledger move for the salvage value so that the allowance general ledger reflects the purchase price of the asset. Then you can delete the asset on the Asset Information window to keep it from making any more monthly depreciation entries and keep it from appearing on the 301 Report. Next, make any final general ledger moves between the allowance and asset general ledger if they are separate general ledger accounts.

Accelerate Asset Depreciation

Question: I need to accelerate an asset and reflect it to be totally depreciated out but still remain on my books. What is the best way to do this?

Answer: Take the current book value and subtract the salvage value from it. The amount calculated should reflect the amount left to still depreciate. Take this amount and place it in the one time depreciation amount field. Complete the one-time depreciation date with the current month and year in order for the system to take this amount at the end of the month instead of the normal monthly amount. For example, the one-time date for June 2004 = 0604.

301 Report Asset Amount Incorrect

Question: I added a brand new asset last month and I just received my 301 Report and it looks like I am off by the monthly amount of the asset. What made this happen?

Answer: When a new asset is added the purchase date should reflect the month the asset is added because this date is when you actually wanted the depreciation to start. If you enter a past-date in this field then it assumes you took the depreciation for any past month-end cycles that took place between the date listed and date added. In this case you can change the purchase date to reflect the month it was added and adjust the book value to reflect only the one month and everything should get back on track for next month or if you do want the asset to reflect the past month and the total depreciation is correct, then you will need to make an entry for the months that the system did not take. The system only takes current month depreciation when an asset is added, it does not make entries for prior months. For example, if I add an asset in 0604, but put a purchase date of 0504, the system will not make the GL entry for 0504, it will only make the GL entry for 0604, however it will reflect that two months depreciation has been taken and lower the book value by the two months, so you must manually make the entry for 0504.

Fully Depreciated Asset on 301 Report & Asset Information window

Question: I have an already fully depreciated asset that I need to reflect on the 301 Report and the Asset Information window. I added the asset on the Asset Information window and it calculated a monthly depreciation amount. Is it going to take this amount?

Answer: The system will calculate what it thinks the monthly depreciation amount was but as long as the book value and salvage value match, then no depreciation will take place. The system will also show a fully depreciated date in the past as well.

Sort Option for the 301 Report

Question: I do not like the way my assets appear on the 301 Report and I want to know if there is a way to sort them differently?

Answer: Unfortunately there is not a sort option on the 301 Report, so the best thing to do is to come up with a system to organize the assets according to the asset ID. The asset ID field is 8 alpha-numeric characters and you should try to use all characters whether you use zero’s to take up any remaining spaces to keep them in order. The following is an example of how the system sorts asset IDs:

M1
M10
M11
M112
M2
M20
M21
M212

Change Asset ID

Question: I added an asset the other day and I want to change the asset ID. How can I do this?

Answer: The system will not allow you to change the asset ID; however, you can create a new asset with the desired name and delete the old one.